Thursday, 8 June 2017

We awoke to the smell of wood smoke and very poor visibility. We are into the first week of winter and with lower temperatures (27c) the authorities have started burning off all the undergrowth to reduce the fuel loading on the ground in an effort to minimalize the risk of bush fires next summer.

The young lady who completed the paper work for our hire car had a lovely Irish accent and when I asked how long she had been in Perth she told me “Four years and I’m hoping to get residency!” She would only go back to Ireland if their summers were as warm as Perth winters.

It’s been a busy day. We were up at 6am and the first delivery was at 7am. The courier delivered a package which turned out to be the NVidia Shield I had ordered from the USA. It was scheduled to arrive on the 13th but was delivered 6 days early. I didn’t buy the NVidia Shield in the UK because it’s cheaper in America. I would have paid VAT on it if I’d ordered from America and taken delivery in the UK. Australia doesn’t collect VAT (GST) on imported goods for personal use if the value is below $1000. The NVidia Shield is part of one of my bucket list projects and will form the client for my planned network media server.

The Shield with its remote. The remote has a microphone enabling the user to command the Shield by voice. The Shield will plug into our TV and wirelessly connect to our media server (yet to be built) and stream videos from our library.

The second delivery was the energy monitor. This consists of three components. There is a clamp which gets fitted around the main electrical supply cable into the house. The clamp records the amount of electricity being consumed by the house This is connected to a “Hub” which wirelessly transmits the information to a second “hub” which is connected to the internet via a router.

First hub and clamp

Second hub connected to the router.

The collected data is sent to a website where we can monitor usage by hour/minute/day/week etc. The data can also be downloaded into a spreadsheet. The reason for purchasing the energy monitor is to get detailed and accurate data on our electrical consumption so I can calculate the size of our planned solar array and battery storage system.

Jan is feeling particularly pleased. She wanted to buy a vellux blanket and after an extensive internet search found a source selling them for $197. Then she identified they had been discounted to $127. After even more searching she found a discount code. The final price was $105

Hopefully the ADSL internet will be connected tomorrow relieving us of the necessity of carefully managing our small mobile data allowance.

This blog is about us, Tom and Jan.
After a decade of travelling from 'down-under' every two years to spend a brief few weeks having a wonderful canal holiday we decided to eliminate the travel and do it full time on retirement. In 2011 we moved to the UK and built Waiouru before spending 6 wonderful years cruising.
In 2017 we sold our lovely boat and moved back to Perth, West Australia where other adventures are on the 'bucket list'.